Weightlifting is a sport that requires a heavy use of muscles and vast amounts of flexibility, so stretches and mobilization are critical to succeed. This article provides details on how to incorporate stretches into your routine, to complement your training and aid your abilities.

Stretching and Power Output

It is essential to first cover a few points that are commonly misinterpreted. It has been researched and discovered that static stretching before exercise can decrease performance output, especially in regards to power.

The natural reaction to this is to think we shouldn’t static stretch, as we will potentially experience performance decreases.

But what is neglected in this thought is the assumption that you currently have adequate flexibility to begin with.

If you don’t have the ability to attain required ranges of motion, the effects of static stretching will actually assist in your lifting.

“Don’t let your flexibility prevent you from attaining more efficient lifting or getting those well-deserved personal-record lifts.”

Youths are often assumed to have good flexibility. But in the Play Station era that we now live in, it is more likely to see youths with poor flexibly, considering the slump position usually maintained while working the games controller, sitting at a desk, etc.

So whether you are an adult or a youth athlete, here are the top stretches I advise for improving your weightlifting performance.

Hamstrings

Most of a child’s day is spent in school in a chair. This is similar for adults who sit at work for the vast majority of their day. This puts the person in a position where the hamstrings are shortened for a length of time.

So it is of no surprise that the hamstrings require stretching to attain the adequate length and range of movement required in weightlifting.

Many people go their whole lives using this hamstring stretch…

…but the most basic stretch is also the most effective.

Typically kids and adults are taught very basic stretches, putting one leg in a slightly bent position while the other is straight. This may be a slight stretch, but it isn’t accomplishing a great deal.

Instead, simply reaching down to touch your toes while maintaining straight legs is far more effective. Widening the feet and then reaching to each foot works well, also.

Ankle Mobility

It’s not often you are required to maximize the range of motion at the ankle, but for weightlifting, this is almost essential to allow for a good receiving position in both the snatch and clean.

Good ankle mobility can best be attained with a combination of things.

First, a stretch:

1. Stand on a step with your forefoot and toes on the step, and the heel and mid-foot hanging off.
2. Lower and raise the heel as low and as high as physically possible. This should encourage a nice stretch.

After that we do the knee-to-wall mobility exercise:

1. Stand in front of a wall in a split position with all your weight distributed to your front leg.
2. Without lifting your heel off the floor, drive your knee forward until it touches the wall, and then return to the start position.
3. If this was easy, move the foot backward half an inch and repeat.
4. Continue to increase the challenge until your heel starts to lift off. When that happens, return to the last distance you were still able to complete properly.
5. Do this for both legs and monitor if both legs are equal distance from the wall or thereabouts. Imbalances are common and should be identified when possible.

Another form of stretch that is nice and easy involves resting a barbell across your knees while in a squat position. For an explanation, watch this video at around the two-minute mark:

Shoulders

Catching a snatch in the right position requires good shoulder mobility. Referring back to the lifestyle our kids currently enjoy, being a keyboard warrior or a games-console king generally results in a slumped upper-body and shoulder posture.

This is going to impact the range of motion they are able to attain at the shoulder. Same goes for adults, if you are sitting like this at your desk all day.

“Having a thorough and regular stretching routine will keep your body more injury resistant, prevent compensation patterns or overuse of a muscle from occurring, and allow you to feel stable and balanced.”

Stretching the shoulder is no easy feat. The shoulder has many muscles that cross over the joint, such as the biceps, triceps, rotator cuff, and deltoid. The pecs, specifically pec minor, influence the slumped shoulder posture, as well.

Here is my personal favorite and weightlifting-specific stretch that attacks the shoulders and hips, and it hasn’t failed me yet. You will need a partner for this one, though.

1. Have the athlete squat down into the bottom position with the hands interlocked and behind the head.
2. Stand behind the athlete and push your shin into his or her lower back and glutes so you are pushing the hips forwards.
3. While doing this, pull the elbows of the athlete backward to open up the chest. This focuses on the pecs, but puts the athlete into a position similar to the snatch receive position.

Here is a video showing a similar, but somewhat more aggressive version. Please, be more careful and considerate when applying this stretch.

Be a Routine Creature

Don’t let your flexibility prevent you from attaining more efficient lifting or getting those well-deserved personal-record lifts.

Get a routine of stretches going before and after your lifting. While the shoulders, hips, and ankles are the most likely areas to create an issue, this is not to say other areas don’t also require attention.

Having a thorough and regular stretching routine will keep your body more injury resistant, prevent compensation patterns or overuse of a muscle from occurring, and allow you to feel stable and balanced during your lifts.

Check out these related articles:

• Mobility for the Start and Bottom In Olympic Weightlifting
• An Easy Method for Teaching a Perfect Weightlifting Start Position
• How Warming Up the Right Way Can Still Go Wrong

Photo 1 courtesy of Becca Borawski Jenkins.

Photos 2 and 3 courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Meet Jimmy – An Average, Healthy Child

Instead of delving into the science of why this can’t be true, I thought it might be more interesting and entertaining to analyze this thought process in other sports, where the myths have been dispelled or are easier to grasp as untrue.

So, without further a do, I to introduce to you Little Jimmy. Jimmy is your average twelve-year-old child. He is of good health, so not underweight and not undernourished. He is of average height, also, so not the tallest or shortest in his class. He’s just pretty darn average.

Jimmy will be the child we follow in each of the sports below, and we’ll discover how each sport will affect him. Poor Jimmy.

Basketball Makes You Taller

Obviously, basketball is a sport we generally associate with very tall men. Long arms and long legs are winning components for an athlete in this sport.

So, Jimmy wants to play basketball. Due to the nature of the sport – lots of jumping and hanging off the basket, lots of tall athletes – we can only conclude that basketball training is going to make Jimmy taller and longer limbed. Right?

Sumo Wresting Makes You Fat

In this sport, we immediately think of huge, fat guys pushing each other around. These guys aren’t just big. They are humongous! Weight is essential as it provides an anchor for the fighters, as well as being used to lean on their opponents, creating a strong force to be resisted or face potential loss in a fight.

Once again, Jimmy has an urge to try a new sport, and this time it turns out to be sumo wrestling. Due to his involvement in such a sport, Jimmy is really starting to pile on the pounds. Nothing to do with his diet, of course. It’s purely because he is partaking in the sport.

Horse Racing Makes You Shorter

Let’s take a look at horse-riding sports, specifically the races. These guys are really quite light and quite small. Clearly, there is a direct correlation with racing a horse and the rider’s resistance to growth during his maturation process.

So, Jimmy fancies giving a go at being a jockey. Is Jimmy going to get shorter due to the exposure to racing a horse?

The Myth of Weightlifting and Stunted Growth

These are all obviously wild and ridiculous assumptions that poor Jimmy will change in his shape due to exposure to certain sports. It’s not that certain adaptations won’t occur from participating in sports, but the idea that sports alter the skeletal structure in the form of growth stumping is ridiculous.

In reality, all of the above are examples of the proportions and body types that work most efficiently for the respective sport, but they are not the only possible body types. Basketball players are tall due to the strategic advantages height brings them in the game. Jockeys are small, and more importantly light, so as not to weigh down the horse and therefore slow it down. Weightlifters are short because it means the bar isn’t required to travel as far. Lifting in excess of three-times body weight is easiest done over a shorter distance.

Yet, as ludicrous is it sounds in other sports, the myth of weightlifting stunting a child’s growth lives on. Even with the countless amounts of recent research proving the safety and effectiveness of youth exposure to weightlifting.

While I’ve been talking about this humorously, there are two valuable lessons to be learned:

1. Sports have specific shapes and sizes that are most efficient for the athletes involved.
2. Just because sports have a desired shape or size, does not mean that those who partake in them will necessarily wind up looking a certain way due to the exposure of the sport.

So, if anyone ever tells you that you shouldn’t let kids participate in weightlifting because it will make them shorter, then just tell them, “It’s okay, it’s compulsory that everyone has to play basketball as well!”

Photo 1 “Day 2 Weightlifting (16 Aug 2010)” By Singapore 2010 Youth Olympics Attribution-NonCommercial License.

Photos 2,3, & 4 courtesy of Shutterstock.

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The Problem of Parents and Weightlifting

A problem you are immediately up against as a coach is within the actual name of our sport – weightlifting, or Olympic weightlifting. Immediately, it states that there is a weight, which requires lifting, much like football requires a foot contacting a ball.

But with children, there is little requirement for any weight to be used in the development process at all. Technique needs to be drilled over and over to develop a movement pattern. Therefore, the title of the sport is already not doing us any favors.

Obviously, parents are unaware of the process of learning, so to some degree, although assumptions are being made, it’s not their fault to have arrived at certain conclusions about the sport. But there are a number of steps we can take to get around these factors.

Education

Parents have little understanding of our sport, let alone our training regimens. I’m consistently asked, “How much do you bench?” This immediately tells me the person asking is oblivious to what I actually do! Also, the news is somewhat tarnished with doping scandals that don’t paint a pretty picture for the sport either.

Educating the parents as to how training is undergone is essential. This should instill faith in the parents that their children are in safe hands. Reassure them that training consists of moving well and that weight will be limited until the athlete can move efficiently and is deemed ready to lift additional load. It should also be pointed out that the additional load will only be slight, and the progression of loading will be over a course of time.

Explain the Benefits

Weightlifting is commonly used to supplement a whole host of other sports. Additionally there are lesser-known benefits, such as improving quality of life at the present and potentially in the future.

In this era of the Xbox and PlayStation, kids are motionless. The development of basic physical literacy is less and less each year. Flexibility, coordination, and balance are prerequisites for weightlifting. Fundamental movement skills and physical literacy are actually further advanced in weightlifting. This, in turn, will reduce the likeliness of injury and skeletal dysfunction. Therefore, the process of learning, and then training, will improve overall quality of life – and potentially for a lifetime.

Change Your Name

If all else fails, then change the name of your class. You can use foreign names for weightlifting, such as halterofilia. If this doesn’t appeal to you, then maybe name it something like “Youth Athlete Development.”

Although this doesn’t help publicize the sport necessarily, it does remove any immediate associations with kids and the lifting of heavy weights. Although not ideal, it’s an option. Perhaps a last resort. However, a class named this way could be viewed and even sold, as a development pathway into weightlifting.

Parental buy-in is an essential component to our sport if we truly expect to attract and create great athletes. Athletes are developed from young ages. The child won’t declare, “I want to try weightlifting,” at this current moment of time, as we are a niche sport with little coverage for him or her to see. It is the parent who will encourage the little person into the sport. So we must make sure the sport is appealing, safe, and appropriate for the child – and matches the parent’s expectations.

Photo 2 courtesy of CFLA Kids.

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Weightlifting (meaning the snatch and the clean and jerk) has been heavily researched in the world of strength and conditioning and has been highly associated with performance enhancement in a variety of sports.¹ But let’s look further into the research. It is more common than not to find most of the research on power and its transferability has been carried out on elite weightlifters. But if your client is a talented track and field athlete with no previous experience in Olympic weightlifting, are you likely to attain the same results as the studies may suggest?

And what does this have to do with warming up?

Where to Put Weightlifting in Your Programming

Some studies have concluded that the best power outputs are created between 70-80% of a one-repetition max (1RM).³ So, it is logical to assume that a beginner has not yet established a true 1RM, and therefore basing performance on percentages is impossible. It is possible that our theoretical athlete may express a large amount of power already, due to being such a talented individual, but until she is competent in executing the technical model of weightlifting, there remains a question in the use of weightlifting movements in the periodized model. Or does there?

We are aware there is an ability to attain some good performance outcomes from utilizing the weightlifting movements in the strength and conditioning programming of our athletes. But we are also aware that these benefits are generally attained once some technical competency has been accomplished and a true 1RM has been established. So, how can we harness these gains? By thinking outside the box and using the warm up not only as a mechanism to prepare our athlete, but to teach her new skills.

The Weightlifting Warm Up in Action

Ranges of sports professionals now commonly use the RAMP (raise, activate, mobilize, and potentiate) warm up method and similar models. The basis of these methods is to raise the pulse and get the blood flowing, activate muscles for use in the session plan, mobilize the joints required for the session and commonly used in other sessions (retaining range of motion for future exercise and in the sport), and potentiate a movement similar to that of the exercises to follow.

Now, look at the competition lifts. To execute the lifts will require great mobility. Below is a warm up sequence you can follow whether you are training the clean or jerk or the snatch. As you or your athlete works through this, you will also find these exercises fall into the category of raising a pulse and mobilizing (and even activation to some extent).

1. Air squats
2. Lunges
3. Empty barbell stiff-leg deadlifts
4. Empty barbell good mornings
5. Empty barbell squats

You may also wish to undergo some kind of mobilization prior to this, such as ankle rolls, wrist rolls, and shoulder dislocations.

Once you have done this sequence, you can move onto to various components of the lifts, which can carryover to be your activation or potentiation components of the warm up. This may be parts of the pulls or parts of the jerk. The world is your oyster! If competency is demonstrated, then you may move the athlete on to the full lift for a few sets at the end, still with just an empty bar.

The Benefits of Putting Weightlifting in the Warm Up

There are a number of positives to using the weightlifting movements as a warm up. It doesn’t have to take long. This may only take up to fifteen minutes and will get your athlete prepared for the session. It will tick all of the boxes required of a warm up in general. And ultimately, it will teach your athlete good mechanics in how to execute the lifts. With this association to the technical model, you are allowing greater performance carryover to the athlete’s respective sport, which you will soon be able to load.

Additionally, this is a safe warm up. You can replace the barbell with a wooden dowel in the above exercises, and then you have an equally good model to warm up youth athletes. An added benefit to this is that when your youth athlete takes the jump from junior competition to senior competition, he or she will have the skill to perform the weightlifting movements and the ability to attain greater performance outcomes at a crucial moment in his or her athletic career. Realistically, this is exactly how weightlifting should be utilized. Pattern the movement at a young age (ten to fifteen years old), so when your athletes come into the late stage of adolescence (fifteen to eighteen years old) they have this tool available to use.

Don’t ignore the lifts because you aren’t able to reap the benefits from them right now. Use them to your advantage in other ways: prepare your athlete for the session as a warm up, and prepare him or her safely at a young age. Think of training as a process. Longitudinally, the hard work will be rewarding.

References:

1. Hori, N., Newton, R., Nosaka, K and Stone, M., “Weightlifting Exercises Enhance Athletic Performance That Requires High-Load Speed Strength.” Strength & Conditioning Journal 27, no. 4 (2005): 50-55.

2. Carlock, J, et al. “The Relationship Between Vertical Jump Power Estimates and Weightlifting Ability: A Field-Test Approach.” Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 18, no. 3 (2004): 534-539.

3. Cormie, P., McCaulley, G., Triplett, T., and McBride, J. “Optimal Loading for Maximal Power Output during Lower-Body Resistance Exercises.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 39, no. 2 (2007): 340-349.

Photos courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

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Kids are just smaller, slightly weaker adults, right? They’d be fine with the same program you’d give any twenty-something-year-old, wouldn’t they? If worse comes to worst, drop a set off, reduce the reps, or maybe adjust the intensity a little bit, right?

Those are all-too-common to hear comments that are actually just plain wrong. It is true that children and adults share a number of factors in common. Physiologically, they are both made up of bone and muscle tissues, they have the same organs, and they need the same fuels. So, why is it you can’t train them both the same way?

Lets refer back to the article I wrote on kids and weightlifting for a split second. You will notice in that article that I put an emphasis on making activities fun for kids. Children like to play games, and they don’t like to stand still for too long.

Psychologically, there is a huge difference in attention and focus between a child and an adult.

It is fair to say that there is a crossover somewhere in the middle as the child matures, where a child actually demonstrates and wants to focus on a particular sport. However, you must still use caution when programming for kids. So without specifically delving into weightlifting just yet, let’s view methods currently being used for developing youths.

Introducing the LTAD Method

The Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) method was originally created by Istvan Balyi. It is a program or template for developing youths through to adulthood with safe and efficient training strategies.

The idea behind the model is that there are optimal windows of opportunity during the development of youths to advance certain physiological characteristics.¹

After its initial development, the model was later criticized by a number of researchers for various issues, but it has since been used and is now continually viewed as an essential guideline for developing youth.² Other options evolved to follow, such as the Youth Physical Development (YPD) model by Lloyd and Oliver.³

The purpose of these models is to bring attention to the fact that as a child grows, there are a number of physiological adaptions happening.

It is critical that fundamental movement skills, or movement literacy, are attained during these stages. As the child goes through adolescence, he or she will mature psychologically and likely look to specialize in a set sport.

Weightlifting Development

I would love to tell you an age where all kids can start lifting, but simply put, there is no such thing.

As stated previously, it all comes back to the psychological status of the children. Do they want to focus and engage? Can you get them to listen and focus? If you can’t, don’t panic – in time, it will happen.

An interesting fact to note: It has been proven that late maturers may actually develop into better athletes than their counterparts in various sports.⁴ So don’t disregard the kids that can’t yet engage or focus your attention towards the earlier-maturing kids – you never know how they all might develop!

How to Teach Little Johnny Weightlifting

So, here you have little Johnny. He may be somewhere between the ages of ten and fourteen. He has decided he wants to start learning weightlifting. Fantastic news, right? So what are you going to do?

As stated above, we now know you can’t just give Johnny a program that your older guys do – you’ll just end up breaking him.

Weightlifting is a highly technical sport, and although some say this can be a hindrance, it can also be a blessing. You have bought yourself a period of time where you can perfect the technique without little-to-no loading.

At my gym, we are fortunate enough to have bars available that weigh 5kg and bumpers that are 1kg each, as well. Please don’t think that I am against loading up a child with weights, but you should take it as a gradual process – there is no need to rush things.

Now, referring back to our LTAD and YPD models, it has been stated that strength gains are typically greatest after a growth spurt. This is easiest to understand with males, as testosterone levels dramatically increase at these points.

So although it is good to start strength development early, due to hormonal status of the children, this pre-growth spurt period gives an optimal opportunity to focus attention on technique. You can then develop strength later, in a period proven to be most efficient for youths.

Here in the United Kingdom, we have competitions for U11 and U13 that are scored on technical execution of the lifts. This further demonstrates that technical mastery is an essential component to lifting and should be viewed as the more important element for kids.

The Soviet lifting manuals that are easily available nowadays also state clearly that class-three lifters (the newbies) must spend up to a year developing the technique of the lifts.

Why is this? Well, one way to view it is fairly simple and logical. You need to learn how to ride a bike before you can ride a bike really fast.

If you can make the movements of the lifts second nature, then adding loads will be the simple progression. Additionally, it will be a lot easier to focus on strength without the concern of “forgetting” how to lift.

So, don’t get carried away trying to make your lifters super strong straight away. With a bit of organization and planning, you can get the most out of your lifters. Emphasize technique to begin with, and make the shift to strength as your lifter attains mastery for the lifts.

Don’t rush – you and each child have a whole lifetime ahead of you!

References:

1. Balyi, I., Sport System Building and Long-term Athlete Development in British Columbia. (2001) Canada; Sports Med BC.

2. Ford, P. Croix, M. Lloyd, R. Meyers, R. Moosavi, M. Oliver, J. Till, K & Williams, C., “The Long-Term Athlete Development model: Physiological evidence and application.” Journal of Sports Sciences, (2011) 29, 389-402.

3. Lloyd, R. & Oiver, J., “The Youth Physical Development Model: A New Approach to Long-Term Athletic Development.” Strength & Conditioning Journal, (2012) 34, 61-72.

4. Lloyd, R. & Oliver, J., Strength & Conditioning for Young Athletes. (2014) Oxon, UK: Routeledge.

Photo 1 courtesy of Shutterstock.

Photo 2 by Londonyouthgames (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo 3 courtesy of CrossFit LA.

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